CNN poll: Romney gets convention bounce of … one point

AllahpunditPosted at 5:21 pm on September 4, 2012

Actually, that’s well in line with the 2004 and 2008 conventions, where two candidates got a two-point bump and the other two got no bounce at all. The race is even now at 48 among likely voters, and Romney/Ryan did itself some good on discrete metrics. Favorables are up for both parts of the ticket, which will be useful if/when Democrats decide that the election hangs on convincing seniors that Paul Ryan wants to murder them:

Among likely voters, Mitt’s favorables are actually now higher than Obama’s. (Obligatory caveats: That may well change after the Democratic convention, and O’s favorables are still far better among registered voters.) Romney’s also increased his lead on the economy against Obama among likelies, from four points last week to six today. And he’s seen a nice turnaround on some questions involving core presidential traits too:

On the main head-to-head question against Obama, Romney led by three among independent likely voters last week. This week?

If you’re wondering how Romney can lead by double digits among independent likely voters and still only be tied with Obama, that’s … a good question. CNN doesn’t publish the partisan split among their sample, but the fact that they’re including leaners with the two parties in this data set probably means (a) the “independent” column is comprised of true independents, which is a small group, and (b) the sample must lean a few points to the left. D+2 or D+3 is possible on election day, but anything beyond that seems far-fetched. Sure would be nice if we had the split to judge.

So far, so good. But alas, my friends, in Eeyoreworld the news is never truly “good.” A troubling footnote:

Granted, that’s registered voters, not likelies, but CNN’s pollster has asked that same question after 12 different conventions dating back to 1984 and the numbers have been net positive every time. Even the 2004 Democratic convention, which gave John Kerry no bounce, saw him net +3 on this particular query. Check out the gender and party splits:

Again, these are registered voters, but these numbers aren’t supposed to be negative. Among women the response is -17(!) on the more/less likely question and among indies it’s -5. Overall, 56 percent of registereds say the GOP spent too much time criticizing the other side versus 34 percent who said they maintained the right balance between criticism and saying positive things about themselves. I’ll be awfully curious to see how that same question shakes out for O given that the Democratic convention promises to be just as negative as the GOP’s, if not more so. Exit question: Er, if people reacted to the convention this badly, how is it that Romney’s favorables are up (among likelies) and he has a small bounce? Surely the gap between likely voters and registered voters isn’t that insanely wide.